Olga Makarova
Once in a while, every parent, to one degree or another, faces the disobedience of their child.
In France in the 60s, even a kid named Nicolas was popular — a character in children’s illustrated books, on which more than one generation of French grew up. He is curious and restless, mischievous but a dreamer, kind and charming boy.
However, even today, the problem of having a child who is too active is considered to be a problem. Parents believe in strict discipline, or otherwise the house will immediately be filled with homeless animals, important financial documents become a scrap paper, and the living room turn into a laboratory of a young chemist.
This is probably why four students Benoit Bargeton, Rémy Froment, Nicolas Gracia and Yannick Lasfas from the ESMA Montpellier School of Applied Arts made a short animated film “Ex-E.T.” about a planet where order and consistency reign, where movements are synchronized and the regime is brought to the point of absurdity, and where suddenly a child appears who breaks all the rules at once.
How is the problem of naughty children on this distant planet being solved?
After a series of “unsuccessfully” passed tests, it was decided to send the child off the planet. An ideal society does not need bold, bright, extraordinary people who do not fit into the personality framework.
And this message is addressed not only to parents, but to society as a whole. After all, the inner desire of a person for freedom, art, for an innate sense of justice cannot be broken, strangled or changed.
By the way, the denouement of the film is unexpected: the kid was lucky — his capsule, along with other capsules of “faulty” children, or rather gifted children from all over the Galaxy, is directed to planet Earth — to that corner of the Universe where there is no ideal order, where you can realize their most daring ideas, and where there is a place for creativity and self-realization.
Alexander Palladin
